The Third Nation Native American Issues

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The Third Nation - Native American Issues
Jonathan Taylor

• Covering the Border Issues from the US-Mexico
  Borderland
• Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism
• and
• The Institute for Justice and Journalism,
• Annenberg School for Communication
• University of Southern California
• November 5, 2003
• Tucson, Arizona

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HPAEID NNI

• The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic
  Development, at the JFK School of Government,
  Harvard University
• ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied
• The Native Nations Institute for Leadership,
  Management, and Policy, Udall Center for Studies
  in Public Policy, Univerisity of Arizona
• udallcenter.arizona.edu/nativenations/index.html

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Overview

• Missions of the HPAIED and NNI
• Research findings on economic development
• Sovereignty
• Institutions
• Native culture
• Implications for policy and journalism

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Missions

• Research and teaching on the causes and
  consequences of American Indian economic
  development.
• Applied research for Indian governments.
• Executive education.
• Governance awards program.

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The Research A Time to be Optimistic?

• Long legacy of problems and challenges
• Growing number of success stories
• Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (Mississippi)
• Confederated Salish and Kootenai (Montana)
• Winnebago Tribe (Nebraska)
• Louden Tribe (Alaska)
• Why are some tribes successful while others
  cannot get off the dime?

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Two Approaches to Economic Development

• 1. The Standard Approach
• Weve got a problempoverty.
• Solution Get Something Going!
• get businesses started,
• find a grant,
• find a program.
• Produces familiar results single-cycles of
  investment in businesses that fail.

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Two Approaches to Economic Development

• 2. The Nation-Building Approach
• Weve got a problempoverty.
• Solution create an environment that is conducive
  to investment of all types.
• Views development primarily as a political
  challenge sovereign, stable, and capable
  institutions of government.
• Produces outcomes capital investment, return
  migration,

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Components of Nation-Building
1. Sovereignty
3. Culture
2. Capable Institutions
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1. (De Facto) Sovereignty

• Genuine decision making control over the tribes
  affairs.
• In virtually every case weve seen of sustained
  economic development, the tribe is in the
  drivers seatoutsiders cannot get development
  going.
• De facto control translates into dollars and
  cents results and a host of qualitative benefits.

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Why Sovereignty?

• Four sovereigns in the US Constitution.
• Quasi-sovereign, domestic dependent nations
  (the Marshall Trilogy)
• The Self-determination Era
• Tribes assertion of de facto control
• Public Law 93-638 and extensions
• Tribal capacity-building

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Why does Sovereignty Matter?

• Who is the self in self-government
• Property rights
• Decision-makers and consequences closer together
• Heterogeneous preferencescultures
• Responsiveness to local conditions

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2. Capable Institutions

• Stable institutions and policies
• Fair and effective dispute resolution
• Separation of politics from business management
• A bureaucracy that can get things done

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Stable Institutions

• Investors of all kinds avoid instability.
• Tribes are reforming their institutions
• Staggered terms for elected, regulatory, and
  judicial officials
• Separation of powers and checks and balances
• Judicial review in times of crisis.

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Fair Effective Dispute Resolution

• Robust, fair, speedy, and independent judicial
  systems foster development
• Court independence has a measurable effect on
  unemployment.
• Judicial systems do not have to look like
  western courts

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Separation of Politics Business Management

• Government ownership of enterprise is a regular
  feature of economic activity in Indian Country.
• Enterprises that are formally insulated from
  politics are four times as likely to be
  profitable
• Tribes are building boards and commissions to
  protect the functioning of enterprise.

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An Effective Bureaucracy

• Getting things done fairly, predictably, and
  efficiently
• Civil service, solid record keeping, independent
  audits, etc.
• Hiring and retaining some of best employees
  available.

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3. Cultural Match

• The match between governing institutions and the
  prevailing norms/attitudes about how authority
  should be organized and exercised is essential to
  government functioning.
• Legitimacy of government is at the core of
  socioeconomic development.
• Constitutional and institutional reform is at the
  core of socioeconomic development.

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Why might (political) culture matter?

• Culture helps principals discipline their agents.
• Culture can be a check on end-runs around
  institutions.
• Culture can be the basis for policy consensus.
• Culture defines the legitimate application of
  authority.

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Implications for Policy

• Government-to-government relationship vs.
  government-to-dependent
• Dispersion vs. centralization of resources,
  objectives, solutions
• Investments in governing capacity vs. adherence
  to rules
• Flexibility in understanding the self in
  self-government.

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Implications for Journalism

• More than the usual investment in stories,
  because the history, policy, and culture of
  relevant tribes is important.
• Cultural assumptions bias
• What culture says about organizing society
• What culture says about Indian policy
• Indians and the melting pot
• The Indian wars are over
• Surplus wealth of Indians
• We gave the IndiansXYZ
• Coward, John M., The Newspaper Indian Native
  American Identity in the Press, 1820-90.